A new TV commercial shows kids eating hot dogs in a school cafeteria and one little boy’s haunting lament: “I was dumbfounded when the doctor told me I have late-stage colon cancer” … But the boy doesn’t have cancer. Neither do two other kids in the ad who claim to be afflicted. The commercial’s pro-vegetarian sponsors say it’s a dramatization that highlights research linking processed meats, including hot dogs, with higher odds of getting colon cancer. But that connection is based on studies of adults, not children, and the increased risk is slight, even if you ate a hot dog a day. While compelling, it isn’t conclusive.

PCRM, like most agenda-driven activist organizations, is appealing to two groups of people: the general public, and opinion-leading elites who shape our public discussions. On both counts, the anti-meat group appears to be gasping for breath. Consider how newspaper editors — the people who filter the news for the public — interpreted the AP story during the last 24 hours. Many editors, well, editorialized about the value of what PCRM was cooking up by re-writing the story’s headline for their readers. Here’s just a sampling:

So much for leading the thought leaders. But what about John Q. Public? Again, the serial exaggerators at PCRM aren’t making any friends at a time in our political season when doom-and-gloom messages usually give way to hope and optimism. (Hint: Cancer isn’t terribly uplifting.) We looked at the online comments of more than two dozen newspapers and TV stations that reprinted the AP story, and here’s what we found:

In Chicago: “Someone tell me the difference between what these people are doing and our government officials recalling 9/11 to get people to vote. Scare tactics are pathetic. I’m going to go have a hot dog with my kid now.”

It’s official: There may yet be hope for this great nation of ours. And here at the Center for Consumer Freedom, we’re all having hot dogs for lunch.